Witness in court-martial trial says she had memory lapses

TNS Regional News
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Sep 26, 2013 at 11:07 AM

The 15-year-old girl who is the complainant and key witness against Air Force Lt. Col. Reginald Kabban in his court-martial on child-rape charges admitted many memory lapses under cross-examination Tuesday.

She also acknowledged that she lied about having sex with a schoolmate and changed her account of another incident in which she initially claimed to have been gang-raped. The girl testified she was raped twice in Centerville in 2011 when she was 13 by Kabban, 41, a relative. She said he sexually and physically abused her from 2005 to 2011. But she acknowledged she was fuzzy in remembering many details, attributing memory lapses to the trauma of the incidents.

During cross-examination in Kabban’s court martial at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the girl said she has had numerous psychiatric hospitalizations for self-harm and suicide attempts, including a five-month inpatient hospitalization in Texas.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Patrick Mulligan, she admitted she lied about having sex with a schoolmate, “partly” to impress other girls and win friends at a new school.

In another incident, she told a therapist she was forcibly sexually assaulted by four boys in a truck, but she testified in court Tuesday that after “they kind of talked me into it,” the sexual contact was consensual, “I guess.”

Asked by Mulligan why she changed her story, she said, “I don’t think they’re lies. I think I have trouble remembering stuff. That’s something I try not to remember. I’ve been trying real hard to forget.”

In another incident, she testified she told a girlfriend about having sex with a boy and the girlfriend reported to police that the complainant said the boy raped her.

The teen testified she had a hard time making friends when she transferred to a local school and “went along with rumors” about her sex life in order to be noticed.

The Dayton Daily News has a policy against naming purported rape victims.

Kabban, who lives in Beavercreek, has pleaded not guilty to all charges, which include rape of a child and aggravated sexual contact and aggravated sexual conduct with a child. Military Judge Lt. Col. Joshua Kastenberg said the court-martial could run into Saturday.

Kabban came to Wright-Patterson in 2009 and is deputy chief of the development and planning branch of the business and enterprise directorate of the Life Cycle Management Center.